Chinese semiconductor thread II

[tokenanalyst]

Shengmei Shanghai Panel-Level Horizontal Electroplating Equipment Won International Honor​

Shanghai ACM Semiconductor Equipment Co., Ltd. (Sci-Tech Innovation Board Stock Code: 688082) announced today that the company's independently developed panel-level horizontal electroplating equipment won the "Technology Enablement Award" awarded by the American 3D InCites Association.

The award selection criteria are based on technological breakthroughs and industry contributions. Past winners have all been leading companies or technology pioneers in the industry. Shengmei Shanghai's award this time means that the company's technological strength and innovative achievements in the field of semiconductor equipment have been recognized internationally.

ACM Shanghai's panel-level horizontal electroplating equipment has proposed innovative solutions to the technical difficulties in the panel-level packaging link in the semiconductor manufacturing process. It can be used for RDL Cu electroplating and bump, Cu/Ni/SnAg electroplating. The equipment uses the horizontal electroplating independently developed by ACM Shanghai to ensure that the panel has good uniformity and precision, avoids cross-contamination between electroplating solutions, improves chip quality, improves efficiency and reduces costs. The equipment can process panels up to 600x600mm in size. In the future, 310x310mm, 515x510mm, and 600x600mm panel-level packaging will become the trend of AI chip packaging.

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[tokenanalyst]

Hantian Tiancheng's 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer plant construction is completed, and equipment purchases will be completed in March​

The Xiamen Area Management Committee of the China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone announced that the 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer plant of Hantian Tiancheng Electronic Technology (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. has been successfully completed. This milestone progress marks an important step for Hantian Tiancheng in the field of silicon carbide epitaxial wafers, which is expected to inject new vitality into the development of my country's semiconductor industry.
On February 28, Hantian Tiancheng Chairman Zhao Jianhui revealed that the company's 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer plant construction has been completed. Currently, equipment procurement is in full swing and is expected to be completed in March. This series of actions demonstrates Hantian Tiancheng's efficient execution and keen insight into industry development.
As the world's largest pure epitaxial wafer manufacturer of silicon carbide semiconductors, Hantian Tiancheng successfully completed pre-IPO financing at the end of last year. The funds used to expand production capacity came from the first 10 billion AIC fund of Xiamen Free Trade International Fund Port - ICBC AIC Fund.
As a representative of the third-generation semiconductor materials, silicon carbide has excellent properties such as high breakdown electric field and high electron mobility, and has broad application prospects in new energy vehicles, 5G communications, smart grids, etc. Compared with traditional-sized wafers, 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafers can manufacture more chips on the same area, effectively reduce production costs, and improve production efficiency, which is of great significance for promoting the large-scale development of the silicon carbide industry.
Hantian Tiancheng has been committed to the research and development and production of silicon carbide epitaxial wafers. With its advanced technology and rich experience, it has established a good reputation in the industry. The completion of the 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer plant will not only improve the company's production capacity and market competitiveness, but will also help ease the supply pressure in my country's high-end semiconductor materials field.
With the completion of equipment purchase, Hantian Tiancheng is expected to achieve large-scale mass production of 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafers in the short term. This will not only meet the urgent demand of the domestic market for high-quality silicon carbide epitaxial wafers, but also provide strong support for the independent and controllable development of my country's semiconductor industry.

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[tphuang]

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According to a report from Central News Agency, the latest report from the Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), indicates that Huawei has reportedly used shell companies to acquire over 2 million AI chip dies manufactured by TSMC and has stockpiled enough high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to sustain more than a year of production.

Sources cited by CSIS state that TSMC produced over 2 million Ascend 910B processor logic dies, all of which are currently in Huawei’s possession. If this is true, the report notes that it would be sufficient to produce 1 million units of Huawei’s Ascend 910C processors.

Furthermore, industry sources told CSIS that approximately 75% of the Ascend 910C processors have completed the advanced packaging process.

The CSIS report cautions that white-listed companies may be tempted by profit incentives to act as intermediaries, placing orders with TSMC on Huawei’s behalf. Additionally, it warns that Huawei could employ similar tactics to acquire supplies from Samsung or even Intel.

Additionally, according to sources cited by CSIS, Huawei’s internal assessment indicates that its stored HBM supply is sufficient to meet an entire year’s production needs. CSIS suggests that a significant portion of this HBM stockpile might have been purchased from Samsung before new U.S. export on HBM controls took effect in December 2024, potentially through shell companies.

As noted by the report, Chinese companies like Huawei have traditionally relied on two main options for manufacturing their self-designed AI chips: outsourcing production to TSMC or partnering with SMIC for domestic chip fabrication.

However, the report notes that U.S. export controls have severely impacted SMIC, Huawei’s AI chip manufacturing partner, leading to significant challenges. These include low yield rates (around 20%) and a limited monthly production capacity of just 20,000 wafers for its 7nm process technology. Additionally, SMIC is struggling to advance beyond the 7nm node.

As noted by the report, in the AI race, U.S. companies still lead China. However, the gap has significantly narrowed, and even with aggressive export control measures, the U.S. lead may now be less than one or two years.

Without export controls, Chinese companies would likely have already surpassed their U.S. competitors in developing and deploying cutting-edge AI models, as the report highlights.

I literally told people months ago that the number is 3 million and told everyone to just relax on this entire AI chip thing. Why again are we using shitty CSIS source posted article here?

 

[OptimusLion]

Xinyuan Micro: North Huachuang intends to obtain control of the company

On the evening of March 10, Xinyuan Micro issued an announcement stating that North Huachuang intends to obtain control of the company, and the company's stock will resume trading from the opening of the market on March 11. The announcement shows that because Shenyang Advanced Manufacturing Technology Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Advanced Manufacturing"), a shareholder holding more than 5% of Xinyuan Micro, signed a "Share Transfer Agreement" with North Huachuang on March 10, Advanced Manufacturing intends to transfer its approximately 19.0649 million shares of the company to North Huachuang at a price of 88.48 yuan per share, accounting for 9.49% of the company's total share capital.

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[OptimusLion]

The cumulative mass production of RISC-V AI CPU K1 in Iteration Time exceeds 50,000!

As of December 2024, the cumulative mass production delivery volume of the Advanced Spacetime 8-core RISC-V AI CPU chip K1 has exceeded 50,000 units. It is the fastest mass-produced RISC-V high-computing power chip and is currently being mass-produced in multiple industries including industry, electricity, robotics, operators, and consumer electronics.

The single-board computers (SBCs) built by various ecological partners based on the K1 chip can quickly access mainstream Al large-model ecosystems such as Deepseek and Tongyi Qianwen, thanks to the innovative architecture of the RISC-V AI CPU and its 2TOPS integrated Al computing power; based on its rich PCIe, USB, GMAC, CAN-FD and other high-speed interfaces, as well as industrial-grade standard quality, it can be directly applied to network storage, industrial control, edge computing, intelligent robots, cloud computers and other fields.

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[tphuang]

The cumulative mass production of RISC-V AI CPU K1 in Iteration Time exceeds 50,000!

As of December 2024, the cumulative mass production delivery volume of the Iterative Spacetime 8-core RISC-V AI CPU chip K1 has exceeded 50,000 units. It is the fastest mass-produced RISC-V high-computing power chip and is currently being mass-produced in multiple industries including industry, electricity, robotics, operators, and consumer electronics.

The single-board computers (SBCs) built by various ecological partners based on the K1 chip can quickly access mainstream Al large-model ecosystems such as Deepseek and Tongyi Qianwen, thanks to the innovative architecture of the RISC-V AI CPU and its 2TOPS integrated Al computing power; based on its rich PCIe, USB, GMAC, CAN-FD and other high-speed interfaces, as well as industrial-grade standard quality, it can be directly applied to network storage, industrial control, edge computing, intelligent robots, cloud computers and other fields.

View attachment 147468

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This is very interesting. running 1.5B models locally on edge devices is a huge area in the future.

 

[european_guy]

Report: Samsung Abandons Pursuit of Baidu’s 2nm AI Chip Orders

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1899015103841968305

According to reports from Korean media, Samsung had been pursuing the AI accelerator foundry business with Baidu, China’s largest internet company, but has effectively decided to abandon the effort Initially, Samsung discussed manufacturing Baidu’s chips using its advanced 2nm process

An industry source cited by the media explained, “There was some optimism that TSMC, under the scrutiny of the U.S. government, might open up opportunities for Samsung to collaborate with Chinese companies, but instead, the U.S.-China conflict is adversely affecting Samsung’s business.”

Baidu and Samsung where working on a 2nm AI custom chip for Baidu....but eventually Trump rained on the party.

Without possibilities to acquire Chinese customers and with US customers all under TSMC, Samsung is evaluating exiting the foundry business altogether.

Capability of manufacturing advanced semiconductors is a very high strategic and geopolitical key factor: in the long term only US and China will retain this capability, and anyone else will be cut out. US will not make the mistake a second time of giving it away. TSMC is only a temporary reality....I'd would not bet on TSMC surviving as is today after 2030. In the best case for them they will have mostly moved to US...yes, the best case for them is not good for them!

 

[tokenanalyst]

Numerical simulation of state parameter distributions and extreme ultraviolet radiation in laser-produced tin plasma​

Abstract: Laser tin (Sn) plasma light source is the core subsystem of the current advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine. The power value and stability of the EUV light within 2% bandwidth near 13.5 nm radiated by it are one of the key indicators to determine the success of the entire lithography machine. In this paper, a detailed numerical simulation study on the distribution of plasma state parameters and EUV radiation spectrum is carried out for the complex system of laser Sn plasma light source. Firstly, based on the detailed energy level model, the radiation opacity data of Sn plasma in the 12-16 nm band are calculated under the condition of local thermodynamic equilibrium approximation. Then, the laser plasma radiation fluid dynamics program RHDLPP is used to simulate the distribution of state parameters such as temperature and electron density of the plasma generated by nanosecond laser pulses acting on Sn planar solid target and droplet target. Combined with the radiation opacity data and plasma state data, the spatially resolved EUV spectrum of the planar target plasma and the angularly resolved EUV spectrum of the droplet target plasma at an observation angle of 60° are simulated using the spectrum simulation post-processing subroutine SpeIma3D. Finally, the droplet target plasma at 13.5 nm and 16 nm is obtained. The variation of the radiation intensity within the 2% bandwidth with the observation angle. The distribution of all plasma state parameters and EUV spectrum simulation results obtained in this paper are in good agreement with the existing experimental results, which proves the simulation ability of the RHDLPP program in laser Sn plasma EUV light source. The relevant results can provide certain support for EUV lithography and the development of domestic EUV light source.

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[tokenanalyst]

Performance Optimization of Sulfonium-Functionalized Molecular Resists for EUV and Electron Beam Lithography​

We report the synthesis and lithographic evaluation of a series of sulfonium-functionalized molecules nonchemically amplified resists (n-CARs) designed for high-resolution lithography. These molecular resists, built upon a rigid adamantane core, feature varied substitution positions (meta or para), side chains (methoxy or butoxy), and counteranions (CF3SO3–, BF4–, PF6–, and SbF6–). Our study highlights that meta-substitution and the incorporation of flexible butoxy side chains significantly enhance the film quality and lithographic performance. Notably, the ADMBu-TF resist, functionalized with CF3SO3– and meta-substituted butoxy chains, exhibits the best lithographic performance. Using extreme ultraviolet lithography, we achieved 15 nm line/space (L/S) patterns with a line-edge roughness of 2.2 nm, positioning this resist as a promising candidate for next-generation lithographic processes.

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[tokenanalyst]

Breaking the Ultraviolet Lithography Limit to Achieve Submicron Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Array Devices​

Direct photolithography is a feasible patterning technique that facilitates the creation of ultrafine full-color quantum dot (QD) arrays. However, the lithographic pixel size is primarily limited by the wavelength of ultraviolet (UV) light passing through the photomask. Here, we report an ingenious patterning strategy for circumventing pixel resolution limitations via a maskless photolithography, which can readily produce uniform submicrometer patterns (0.5 μm using a 365 nm UV light). Monolayer photo-cross-linkers are nanoimprinted onto the QD layer to bridge the surface ligands between adjacent QDs under UV irradiation, thereby generating stable QD patterns after developing. More importantly, the molecularly thick photo-cross-linker weakens the electron injection ability and reduces the interface exciton quenching to improve the fluorescence lifetime. We have successfully fabricated high-performance QD light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) with a resolution of 25,400 pixels per inch. This study expands the toolbox for overcoming the diffraction limit of photolithography to achieve ultrahigh resolution QLEDs.

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